Starting a food revolution

A message from Let's Talk About Food founder Louisa Kasdon

With passion, a playbook and plenty of good partners, you can spark a food revolution in your own town. Through the simple act of public conversation, we can change the future of food in our countryone city at a time.

My goal was simple: to engage people of all ages in the conversation about food. I didnt care if the hot topic for any one individual was sustainability or urban farming; obesity, school food, or food labeling; or home cooking, or even just the joy of eating. I figured that if you could connect each person with a food passion, they would ride that ray straight to the center of change.

Lets Talk About Food has morphed into a citywide umbrella organization that presents educational events in partnership with universities, museums, libraries, hospitals, cities and towns, cooking schools, trade organizations, science festivals and a host of other non-profits. We are thrilled to be in a partnership with The Boston Globe and Whole Foods Market.

As the former food editor oft the Boston Phoenix and former restaurant owner, I was convinced that Food, Inc. would be the trigger for an energetic conversation. I wrote a glowing review. But surprisingly, the movie tanked.

We put together a screening at the Bostons Museum of Science for the food community chefs, nutritionists, academics, people from the public sector and basically anyone else in our contact lists. The response was overwhelming. An auditorium filled at 2 PM on a Tuesday afternoon. Lets Talk About Food was born.

Since that first event, weve held over 50 public event, and partnered with the Museum of Science, Harvard Law School, the Chefs Collaborative, the New England Aquarium, the City of Boston and the City of Cambridge and many more to bring experts and the public together.

I am proud of what Ive accomplished. But heres the point: I didnt do it alone. By asking organizations, experts, volunteers to do what they do best and most easily, I was able to put together the blueprint for a community conversation around food. Id love to share my experience with people in other cities and work together to get everyone, everywhere, talking about food. When everyone has a stake in what we eat, the quality of our food will soar.

About our team

Let's Talk About Food is the brainchild of Louisa Kasdon, a longstanding member of the Boston area's culinary community.

Kasdon is a food and health writer and a passionate advocate for public education around food and health. She started in the food world as a restauranteur, owning three restaurants before happily making the transition from preparing food to writing about it. Kasdon served as the food editor of the Boston Phoenix and has authored over 500 published pieces in regional and national publications. Kasdon is a winner of the M.F.K. Fisher Prize for Excellence in Culinary Writing and is a graduate of Wellesley College, M.I.T., and the Wharton School.

Leigh Belanger is a Boston-based writer and communications consultant. She is the author of The Boston Homegrown Cookbook (Voyageur Press, 2012) and the former program director for Chefs Collaborative, a national network of culinary professionals dedicated to improving the food system.

Leighs work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Edible Boston, Cooks Illustrated, and other outlets. She lives and cooks with her family in Jamaica Plain. Follow Leigh on Twitter @leighbelanger or on Tumblr at good-egg.tumblr.com.